Memories Tumble Out: Pichon Baron 1937-1990

BY NEAL MARTIN | AUGUST 31, 2022

Grey. 1978-1982. Dartmoor ponies. Grandparents snoozing in deckchairs. An F-14 screams overhead. Hammer the tortoise (munching lettuce). Sooty, the cat (RIP)

Blue: 1988-1989. Puerile ‘Public Enemy’ poses in the Lake District. Pony-tailed teenagers drinking cider five-minutes before a police raid. Pebbles, the dog (RIP)

Red: 1993. Black and white arty images - Richard Avedon had he idled away an afternoon on Two Tree Island, Essex, with his bored and unemployed mates.

White: 1994-1995. Neon-lit Shinjuku skyline. Mountain-top shrines. Japanese schoolgirls in sailor’s uniforms and a constellation of peace signs. Frank, the dog (RIP).

Green: 2002. Cheap suit and gaudy tie outside Yquem. Michael Broadbent in half-moon spectacles imparting wisdom. Girlfriend self-tied in a yoga knot in the garden. Brian and Uma, the cats (AWOL).

What the hell am I rabbiting on about now? These are the dozen colour-coordinated photo albums that sit on my bookshelf, each a pictorial account of my life between certain years. Open a page and memories tumble out. They are analogous to conducting a vertical tasting, since they too tell the story of a producer over a specific period of time. Like old photographs, they instinctively encourage us to contemplate the coeval circumstances, the backdrop, what might have been transpiring behind the scenes. We instinctively relate that to our own lives. Maybe like me, whenever I drink a particular vintage, I momentarily reflect about what I was doing or where I lived or who I was with at that time. The one crucial difference is that whilst we can look at a photograph an endless number of times, wine is martyred as soon as the cork is pulled.

Last March, I had the privilege of flicking through the “photo album” of Château Pichon Baron. I had to brush off the dust of this one because it covered the years 1937 to 1966. Having already examined the recent era following a comprehensive vertical covering 1983 to 2018, I wanted to delve back further in time, research for a project I have been working on. I asked proprietor Christian Seely whether Pichon Baron had a decent library of older vintages? Regrettably and predictably he answered they had hardly any older vintages. Like many châteaux, entire productions were sold and remaining bottles picked off over lunches and dinners by its erstwhile managers and owners. One hardly ever sees vintages of Pichon Baron that predate the Eighties, in fact, it is easier to forage First Growths from that era. Nevertheless, Seely promised to rifle around and eventually told me that he found “one or two bottles including some I would like to try myself. Call me when you’re next down.”  

This photo depicts the rear garden of Pichon-Baron around the turn of the 20th century. Unsurprisingly, the château-building looks virtually unchanged between now and then.